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Board Repair

Hey Im trying to get into basic glassing and board repairs. Ive made a few experimental trys glassing on older boards. The results were not really successful. Looking to repair dings on a seasoned Flyer II. Any tips on materials or procedure?

Have you heard of Swaylocks? It's pretty much the largest knowledge base on board building, design and repair there is. The forum is a pretty nice and helpful place too.

I have to repair a rail ding. Not gonna happen this weekend, I gotta put in crazy OT for the next twix. That and the short days are gonna cramp my surfing. If I started digging around in my ding repair tool box, I'd find a yard or two of 4oz. glass, a yard or two of 6oz., some heavy duty orange handled utility shears, some catalyst. A quart of laminating resin, a quart of surfacing resin, a sorry lack of gloss, some catalyst. A nice, smooth piece of 1"x4"x6" (old piece that's truly one inch by 4", the six is a guess) with rounded sides I use as a sanding block. A dust mask, various tapes, couple of paper bags from the grocery store, a gallon o acetone and some goof off. A couple of different colors of acrylic paint and some resin pigments. Primaries, black, white.

You pick it all up here and there. Keep at it, my first ding repair jobs were awful; but most were water tight. That's the important part.

Post some pics... lots of guys here fix their own dings and can give you good advise if they know what you're up against.

Other than that... prep is key. Removing loose material and preparing the surrounding surface is the most important step in a repair that is water tight, structurally sound, and will last the life of your board. After that, it's creating a repair that matches the contour of the board around it, and cosmetics. Getting the final finish on a quality repair job has a lot to do with the application of filler material, how you laid up your glass patches, and how well you faired the edges of the cloth before you hotcoat.

this is a link for glassing and repairing fiberglass boats- some good tips, info and knowledge within plus some good pics and useful tools and how to use them. Also- some great tips on finishing and sanding- thats what really makes the repair look good. ps- a quick tip- fine sand (wetsanding) from 120 grit to 200 to 400 to 600- then get your hands on some 3M 'scratch remover' from an autoparts store and buff out the rest to make it super slick and shinny with a buffer with wool. http://www.westsystem.com/ss/assets/...aintenance.pdf